If you’re looking for a career where you can make money and enjoy what you do, the tech field offers great opportunities. Enterprise architect tops the list based on the ratings and salaries of those who hold the job.
It can be a stressful job because it involves serving as a bridge between the tech and business sides of an organization. But many find it rewarding to help their company adapt to the digital world. Those in enterprise architect roles need to have the highest level of tech expertise in the company and the ability to keep the company following a tech roadmap that aligns with the business’s goals.
Let’s take a look at how to navigate your career toward taking on this particular job.
1. Get an Education
Most people start the path to enterprise architect with a bachelor’s degree, often in IT management, computer science, or a similar field. You’ll still need to add that five to 10 years of relevant work experience to the formal education.
While it isn’t necessary, some add to their formal education with a master’s degree in enterprise architecture. You could also pursue a business degree to add to your technical knowledge.
Some enterprise architects start their career path as data scientists, software developers, and networking experts. What matters is a strong background in one or more critical IT service areas.
2. Pursue Certification
Add to your formal education through certification, especially if your degree and experience are outside a traditional tech field. It’s a way of confirming the on-the-job education you receive and demonstrating your knowledge in specific areas.
You have lots of different architect certification options as a modern enterprise architect. Your choice should be based on the particular standard it’s based on, relevance to your industry, and usefulness to your company’s size.
You should look to get certified in specific areas that fall in your purview like cloud tech, security, and service management frameworks.
3. Always Be Training
Gaining on-the-job experience helps you develop the philosophy you’ll use to guide your organization. But your continuing education should offer the chance to learn new technologies or programming languages.
This type of education can fall into the categories of conferences, seminars, and workshops or reading technical books and trying new things. The goal is to stay on top of trends and learn all the different pieces of the IT puzzle from cyber security to edge computing to data science.
While you should be adding to your technical knowledge, this is also the place to be learning more business skills to help you communicate with other divisions of the company.
4. Develop Soft Skills
The final piece of the puzzle is the soft skills that help you navigate and negotiate the way among various departments and priorities. Your communication and leadership skills allow you to understand people’s needs and present potential solutions to them while educating them on how those solutions fit with the roadmap you establish.
Looking To Become an Enterprise Architect?
Like many higher-level jobs, you’ll find many paths leading to the role of enterprise architect. The job requires not just technical skills gained from education and certification, but also business acumen and know-how. It’s a coveted role within the IT industry as it influences the company’s technical path.
Interested in enterprise architect jobs? Check out other articles on this site for information about choosing a career path in tech and finding a job in the field.
